TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, APRIL 20, the 110th day of 2018. There are 255 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1898, President William McKinley signed a congressional resolution recognizing Cuban independence and authorizing U.S. military intervention to achieve that goal.
In 1889, Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria.
In 1914, the Ludlow Massacre took place when the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a tent colony of striking miners; about 20 (accounts vary) strikers, women and children died.
In 1938, “Olympia,” Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, was first shown in Nazi Germany.
In 1972, Apollo 16’s lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., landed on the moon.
In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Wooley v. Maynard, ruled 6-3 that car owners could refuse to display state mottoes on license plates.
In 1978, a Korean Air Lines Boeing 707 crash-landed in northwestern Russia after being fired on by a Soviet interceptor after entering Soviet airspace; two passengers were killed.
In 1988, gunmen who had hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet were allowed safe passage out of Algeria under an agreement that freed the remaining 31 hostages and ended a 15-day siege in which two passengers were slain.
In 1999, the Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.
In 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform killed 11 workers and caused a blow-out that began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (The well was finally capped nearly three months later.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is 98. Actor Leslie Phillips is 94. Actor George Takei is 81. Singer Johnny Tillotson is 80. Actor Ryan O’Neal is 77. Bluegrass singermusician Doyle Lawson (Quicksilver) is 74. Rock musician Craig Frost (Grand Funk; Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band) and actor Gregory Itzin are 70. Actress Jessica Lange is 69. Actors Crispin Glover and Andy Serkis are 54. Actor William deVry is 50. Actor Shemar Moore is 48. Actress Carmen Electra and reggae singer Stephen Marley are 46. Actor Joey Lawrence is 42. Country musician Clay Cook (Zac Brown Band) is 40. Actor Carlos Valdes (TV: “The Flash”) is 29.